Got a deal to discuss? Want to impress your top client or thank the team? Here are the best restaurants for business in Sydney – tested by our reviewers withFirst, get the Jatz biscuits with smoked butter and anchovy – brainchild of founding chef Mitch Orr – then decide what else you are going to eat.
Against a raw pine, neon and floaty linen backdrop that references Japanese drinking dens, city workers gather over dumplings. It’s Sydney’s Supernormal.If the occasion demands something special, an immaculate 14-day dry-aged roast duck service or Korean-style pork ssam will deliver. Or play with high-voltage snacks such as duck tsukune meatballs on a skewer, and the signature fish finger bao with cheese and pickled chilli.
And if you think private dining rooms are characterless, check out the soundproofed Norfolk Room with its private bar and table for 20, and the eight-seater American oak table of The Library, which conceals a custom-built poker table, for that potential team-building poker lesson with your own private croupier. Well, of course it does.| Yes, the wine list is broad and deep, but in this setting it’s so tempting to sink into the extraordinary selection of old and rare bourbons.
There’s a brilliant public-yet-private dining room for eight or 10 on the left as you enter. Otherwise, the best free-range tables are to the right of the entrance. Be sure to order har gau, sui mai and prawn cheung fan at lunch, otherwise it’s all about the immaculate Peking duck with beautifully fragrant pancakes, “char siu” roasted Glacier 51 toothfish, and wok-fried rock lobster with soft and buttery egg noodles.
For a restaurant group best known for small, cosy 40-seaters such as Love, Tilly Devine, Dear Sainte Eloise, Ragazzi and pasta-masters Fabbrica, the Love Tilly Group runs the place with a brisk air of efficiency. By day, light floods in; by night, tables are candlelit.The booths in the second dining space are hot property, and there’s a very cool long-tabled dining room to the rear, where a group of 20 can keep the drapes open to capture the buzz while still having their own space.
Wife Samantha and daughters Josephine, Macy and Indy bring warmth to the restaurant team, and the large corner restaurant is named for Perry’s late mother, Margaret. “You feel like you are in a family restaurant – because you are,” notes hedge fund manager Doug Tynan. Geraghty reveals that whole restaurant buy-outs are not uncommon, with corporate groups sailing up the Hawkesbury on a chartered superyacht for lunch, and partying all the way back. Sure beats a ferry.| This list is so good, so replete with incredible drinks – from Hurdle Creek Pastis to Crittenden Macvin – you won’t even notice it’s all-Australian.Aalia’ s salted sesame leaf with aged and fermented mounds of rice topped with ocean-fresh sea urchin.